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Vampire: Elder Kindred Network Newsletter November 2017

Greetings fellow MethuselahLanded any 8-pool bleeds lately? Maybe a Parity Shift for 5 with added Voter Captivation for 13? No? Then you´re not just trying hard enough! This month we keep the letter short and sweet, because there are no real news about that stuff you really want to hear about. But then again, can it be more interesting than new V:TES rules changes?

RULES CHANGES UNDER CONSIDERATIONThe V:EKN are considering rules changes. No decisions have been made yet, and we are interested in feedback from the player community.

From Vincent Ripoll, V:EKN Rules Director:

Proposed change #1: Timing during the influence phaseSuggested new rulebook text:IV. Influence phaseAt the start of her influence phase, the player gets 4 transfers, except on the first turn of the game where the first player gets 1 transfer, the second player gets 2 transfers, and the third player gets 3 transfers. Like master phase actions, transfers can be spent for different effects, and transfers that don't have been spent are lost when proceeding to the next phase. These effects are: ·Spend 1 transfer: move one blood counter from her pool to a vampire in her uncontrolled region ·Spend 2 transfers: move one blood counter from a vampire in her uncontrolled region to her pool ·Spend 4 transfers and pay 1 pool: draw a crypt card. ·Spend 4 transfers and pay 1 pool: merge a base and an advanced version of a vampire.Some cards allow to spend transfers to produce other effects. Some cards also grant additional transfers. At any time during this phase, if a vampire has at least as many blood counters as his capacity, the player can move to the ready region that vampire. The blood counters on the vampire stay on him and become his blood. Blood counters in excess to his capacity are burned (see sec. H.1. Crypt cards). If the vampire grants additional transfer, those can’t be used on this turn as transfers are gained at the start of the influence phase.

tl;dr: Vampires now do not come out all at once at the end of your influence phase. Instead, you order bringing them into play as you wish during your influence phase (and it's not mandatory to bring them out if they're at full capacity), resolving effects for them as they come into play. You can´t contest yourself anymore by "accidentally" moving a vampire you already control into play (hopefully Jimmy Dunn is still unaffected). You still only gain transfers at the start of your influence phase, so you don't get 2 extra transfers the turn you bring Ingrid Rossler into play. Why are we changing this? The strategic value of the current system is very low, and has always been a source of mistakes (a player brings out a vampire, then influence some more), breaking moves ("accidental" self-contest), and difficult rollbacks (a vampire with enough blood should have come out the turn before). Changing the rule puts the influence phase on the same level as other phases where effects can be ordered as you want, removing an extra step to learn. It has some incidence on a few cards (such as Anarch Convert or Angela Preston), and allows people to Govern down many times on the same vampire, but playtest done so far has not shown any abuse. Self-contesting vampires would now be prohibited to follow the same rules as library cards (it never made sense to have two different rules).

Proposed change #2: Anarch as a sectThe anarch trait has always been tightly associated to the Independent sect: a vampire that would change sect would lose its anarch status. With the announcement of Anarch being a sect in the upcoming fifth edition of the Vampire the Masquerade roleplaying game (“V5”), we consider changing the anarch trait to a new sect. Cards that were previously requiring an Independent vampire would then require either an Independent or an Anarch vampire (e.g., Reckless Agitation). Most cards with a "go anarch" effect will be de facto cleaner since changing sect would automatically remove the vampire from the Anarch sect.Proposed change #3: Caitiff as a clanThe rule stating that Caitiff are clanless, while true to the canon, has had negligible impact on games of V:tES. For the sake of consistency, we are considering removing that special case and treating Caitiff as a clan. This would also allow us to create clan-specific cards for Caitiff - it is currently not possible as a Caitiff cannot meet the clan requirement of a card if they have no clan.

Proposed change #4: Recruit regionRecruited allies will now go to a new region that is part of the ready region, called the recruit region. The behavior will stay the same (allies in the recruit region can't act or block), but will avoid having an ally "placed in your uncontrolled region, even though it is controlled, to indicate that it cannot act this turn".

There are also some other rule changes being considered. In the meantime, feel free to discuss the changes mentioned above and other changes you may think of on the V:EKN forum or in social media. The Rules Team will keep a close eye on your comments!

ANTHOLOGY STILL FOR SALEYes, there are still a some packs of Berlin Anthology left at the PDA web shop. Including Ashur Tablets, Enkil Cog, Monastery of Shadows as well as many never before printed cards, these packs are indeed worth 30 euro – don´t hesitate!

PLAYER INTERVIEW OF THE MONTH: KARI HYLLKari Hyll won the UK National Championship last weekend, the as of yet greatest achivement in a long and generally high standard V:TES career, in Sweden, Canada and England. Kari is a calculating player with original ideas, so we thought a chat would be interested for you to take part of.

Congratulations on the victory Kari! What deck did you play and why?- I played a block’n’vote master deck based on Angelica, the Canonicus. The UK metagame is violent so I wanted sometehing that would be fairly rush-resistent. I also wanted to stealth vote. I recalled seeing Randal Rudstam playing a similar Angelica-deck once, so I put a deck together the day before the tournament. Always a bit risky with an untested deck, but as long as it’s a deck I look forward to playing I will have a fun tournament anyway.

- The strengths of the deck is that it’s resource efficient. It doesn’t have any wakes, but relies on Metro Underground and/or Moncada to keep Angelica untapped to play Obedience. The ability to throw away masters for intercept allows you to play with more crypt acceleration and Parthenons so that you can get key cards early. The six Ashurs are then used to recover cards like Obedience and votes. Its major weaknesses are bigcap rush (which luckily wasn’t present in the tournament) and that it is a bit slow in dealing damage, due to lack of multiact.

How were the preliminary rounds?- Overall, my deck flowed well and had strong starts and good survivability, but was a tad too slow. Two tables timed out, with me getting a few scattered VP’s. In the third game I got two VP’s but ran out of deck, partly due to sacrificing an Ashur Tablet for intercept (denying a Sudario Refraction and allowing me an oust next round). With no deck I couldn’t get past Hugh Angseesing´s two Raven Spies, and he got the two last VP’s in that game.

And how was the final?- I was 3rd seed into the final. I didn’t know what the 5th seed-player was playing, so I went for preying on Hugh instead, knowing that his Gangrel/!Gangrel toolbox deck was annoying, but manageable as long as I had Obediences. I wasn’t too pleased when the presence vote deck chose to prey on me – it was obvious that we would compete on votes, while we otherwise could have been allies. The Rachel Brandywine deck chose to be my prey, which meant I was between the two other decks with votes – not an optimal seating.- My initial libary draw was lousy – I only had one transfer, and I didn’t draw any crypt acceleration. So I chose to go for Alvaro instead of Angelica as first minion, to get some votes to counter the Praxis Seizures of my predator. My grandpredator blocked a few early votes by my predator, which slowed him down a bit. After turn three I got some crypt acceleration and could start getting Angelica out, who became a Legendary Vampire. Eventually Moncada followed. The table changed rapidly when Rachel Brandywine got Rötschreked by Hugh, followed by diablerie. I decided on burning Hugh’s diablering minion, earning a grudge from him. I waited with ousting for a few turns as I didn’t have any Obediences in hand and didn’t want to oust and end up next to Hugh’s Deep Song-rushes, but becoming low on pool forced my hand and I took the VP. When Angelica was Archon Investigated by Hugh shortly thereafter I was sure my game was over – I lost the slight vote overtake I’d had on my voting predator, and also my only way of blocking his actions. However, time was running up and my predator had a bad draw, so I managed to just survive until time was up, with one pool left.

What about your V:TES background, when did you start playing the game?- I started playing V:TES in 2004 when I moved to a town in northern Sweden for a year. The local gaming club mainly played Warhammer 40k and V:TES, so I chose to learn the latter, already having encountered a bit of White Wolf fiction before. I started with two of each of the Final Nights Setite and Ravnos starters. I think it took me half a year to get my first VP – lucky that I was patient!

What decks do you generally prefer?- I love toolboxes, but the printing of Villein forced me to change my playing style – toolboxes just didn’t deal enough damage any longer. The three decks I’ve worked most on during the last few years are my Blood Brother block deck, my Sha-Ennu powerbleed deck, and my Assamite Royalty vote’n’bleed deck. I will rarely play grinders or Inner Circle decks - they bore me.

Do you think you have a special “style” of playing?- I would say that my play is prey-oriented. Just let me play my game so that I can try to oust my prey. I rarely make VP deals, or any other big deals. I prefer decks that don’t casually oust just to get to the triad. Also, my decks are always rather thick – I rarely go below 75 cards.

Do you have any new deck or tech "boiling" you can warn us about?- I’m currently experimenting with a weenie Chimestry “costs 3 blood to deflect” deck. And I’m still trying to find the right thing to do with Mithras.